Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 422

'Is that you, my good Margaret?' said a feeble and broken voice from the farther end of the little apartment.

'Yes, my dear lady; yes, it is I; and very sorry I am to have made you uneasy. But Madame Lebriton, my worthy employer, is so active herself, that she always finds the workwoman's day too short—though it is good twelve hours—and just as I was going to fold up my work, she brought me a job in a great hurry. I could not refuse her; but this time, I must own, I got well paid for being obliging, for after I had done, she said in her most good-natured way: "Here, you shall take home with you some of this nice pie, and this bottle of good wine, and have a comfortable supper with your sister." So she always calls you, madame,' added Margaret, while complacently glancing at the basket, the contents of which she now laid out upon the table. 'As I believe it is safest for you, I do not undeceive her, though it is easily known she cannot have looked very close at us, or she might have seen that I could only be the servant of so noble-looking a lady'–

The feeble voice interrupted her: 'My servant!—you my servant! when, instead of rewarding your services, I allow you to toil for my support, and to lavish upon me the most tender, the most devoted affection! My poor Margaret! you who have undertaken for me at your age, and with your infirmities, daily and arduous toil, are you not indeed a sister of whom I may well be proud? Your nobility has a higher origin than mine. Reduced by political changes, which have left me homeless and penniless, I owe everything to you; and so tenderly do you minister to me, that even in this garret I could still almost fancy myself the noble Abbess of Vatteville!'

As she spoke, the aged lady raised herself in her old arm-chair, and throwing back a black veil, disclosed features still beautiful, and a forehead still free from every wrinkle, and eyes now sparkling with something of their former brilliancy. She extended her hand to Margaret, who affectionately kissed it; and then, apprehensive that further excitement could not but be injurious to her mistress, the faithful creature endeavoured to divert her thoughts into another channel, by inviting her to partake of the little feast provided by the kindness of her employer. Margaret being in the habit of taking her meals in the house where she worked, the noble Lady Marie Anne Adelaide de Vatteville was thus usually left alone and unattended, to eat the scanty fare prescribed by the extreme narrowness of her resources; so that she now felt quite cheered by the novel comfort, not merely of the better-spread table, but of the company of her faithful servant; and it was in an almost mirthful tone she said, when the repast was ended: 'Margaret, I have a secret to confide to you. I will not—I ought not to keep it any longer to myself.'

'A secret, my dear mistress! a secret from me!' exclaimed the faithful creature in a slightly reproachful tone.

'Yes, dear Margaret, a secret from you; but to be so no longer. No more henceforth of the toils you have undergone for me; they must be given up: I cannot do without you. At my age, to be left alone is intolerable. When you are not near me, I get so lonely, and sometimes feel quite afraid, I cannot tell of what, but I suppose it is natural to the old to fear; and often—will you believe it?—I catch myself weeping like a very child. Ah! when age comes on us, we lose all strength, all fortitude. But you will not leave me any more? Promise me, dear Margaret.'

'But in that case what is to become of us?' said Margaret.

'This is the very thing I have to tell. And now listen to me. Take this key, and in the right-hand drawer of the press you will find the green casket, where, among my letters and family papers, you will see a small case, which bring to me.'

Margaret, not a little surprised, did as she was desired. The abbess gazed on the case for some moments in silence, and Margaret thought she saw a tear glisten in her eye as she pressed the box to her lips, and kissed it tenderly and reverentially.

'I have sworn,' she said, 'never to part with it; yet what can I do? It must be so: it is the will of God.' And with a trembling hand, as if about to commit sacrilege, she opened the case, and drew from it a ruby of great brilliancy and beauty. 'You see this jewel?' she said. 'Margaret, it is the glory of my ancient house; it is the last gem in my coronet, and more precious in my eyes than anything in the world. My grand-uncle, the noblest of men, the Archbishop of Besançon, brought it from the East; and when, in guerdon for some-family service, Louis XIV. founded the Abbey of Vatteville, and made my grand-aunt the first abbess of the order, he himself adorned her cross with it. You now know the value of the jewel to me; and though I cannot tell its marketable value, still, notwithstanding the pressure of the times, I cannot but think it must bring sufficient to secure us, for some time at least, from want. "Were I to consider myself alone, I would starve sooner than touch the sacred deposit; but to allow you, Margaret, to suffer, and to suffer for me—to take advantage any longer of your disinterested affection and devoted fidelity—would be base selfishness. God has at last taught me that I was but sacrificing you to my pride, and I must hasten to make atonement. I will endeavour to raise money on this jewel. You know old M. Simon? Notwithstanding his mean appearance and humble mode of living, I am persuaded he is a rich man; and though parsimonious in the extreme, he is good-natured and obliging whenever he can be so without any risk of loss to himself.'

The next day, in pursuance of her project, the abbess, accompanied by Margaret, repaired to the house of M. Simon. 'I know, sir,' she said, 'from your kindness to some friends of mine, that you feel an interest in the class to which I belong, and that you are incapable of betraying a confidence reposed in you. I am the Abbess of Vatteville. Driven forth from the plundered and ruined abbey, I am living in the town under an assumed name. I have been stripped of everything; and but for the self-sacrificing attachment of a faithful servant, I must have died of want. However, I have still one resource, and only one. I know not if I am right in availing myself of it, but at my age the power to struggle fails. Besides, do not suffer alone; and this consideration decides me. Will you, then, have the goodness to give me a loan on this jewel?'

'I believe, madame, you have mistaken me for a pawnbroker. I am not in the habit of advancing money in this way. I am myself very poor, and money is now everywhere scarce. I should be very glad to be able to oblige you, but just at present it is quite out of the question.'

For a moment the poor abbess felt all hope extinct; but with a last effort to move his compassion, she said: 'Oh, sir, remember that secrecy is of such importance to me, I dare not apply to any one else. The privacy, the obscurity in which I live, alone has prevented me from paying with my blood the penalty attached to a noble name and lineage.'

'But how am I to ascertain the value of the jewel? I am no jeweller; and I fear, in my ignorance, to wrong either you or myself.'

'I implore you, sir, not to refuse me. I have no alternative But to starve; for I am too old to work, and beg I cannot. Keep the jewel as a pledge, and give me some relief.'

Old Simon, though covetous, was not devoid of feeling. He was touched by the tears of the venerable lady; and besides, the more he looked at the jewel, the more persuaded he became of its being really valuable. After a few moments' consideration, he said: 'All the money I am worth at this moment is 1500 francs; and though I have my suspicions that I am making a foolish bargain, I had rather run any risk than leave you in such distress. The next time I have business in Paris, I can ascertain the value of the jewel, and if I have given you too little, I will make it up to you.' And with, a glad and grateful heart the abbess took home the 1500 francs, thankful at having obtained the means of subsistence for at least a year.

Some months later, old Simon went up to Paris, and hastening to one of the principal jewellers, shewed the ruby, and begged to know its value. The jeweller took the stone carelessly; but after a few moments' examination of it, he cast a rapid glance at the threadbare coat and mean appearance of the possessor, and then abruptly exclaimed: 'This jewel does not belong to you, and you must not leave the house till you account for its being in your possession. Close the doors,' he said to his foreman, 'and send for the police.' In vain did Simon protest his innocence; in vain did he offer every proof of it. The lapidary would listen to nothing; but at every look he gave the gem, he darted at him a fresh glance of angry contempt. 'You must be a fool as well as a knave,' he said. 'Do you know, scoundrel, that this is the Vatteville—the prince of rubies; the most splendid, the rarest of gems. It might be deemed a mere creation of imagination, were it not enrolled and accurately described in the archives of our art. See here, in the Guide des Lapidaires, a print of it. Mark its antique fashioning, and that dark spot!—yes, it is indeed the precious ruby so long thought lost. Rest assured, fellow, you shall not quit the house until you satisfy me how you have contrived to get possession of it.'

'I should at once have told you, but from unwillingness to endanger the life of a poor woman who has confided in me. I got the jewel from the Abbess de Vatteville herself, and it is her last and only resource.' And now M. Simon proved, by unquestionable documents, that notwithstanding his more than humble appearance, he was a man of wealth and respectability, and received the apologies which were tendered, together with assurances that Madame Vatteville's secret was safe with one who, he begged to say,'knew how to respect misfortune, whenever and however presented to his notice.'

'But what is the jewel worth?' asked M. Simon.

'Millions, sir! and neither I nor any one else in the trade here could purchase it, unless as a joint concern, and in case of a coronation or a marriage in one of the royal houses of Europe, for such an occasion alone could make it not a risk to buy it. But meanwhile I will, if you wish, mention it to some of the trade.'

'I am in no hurry,' said Simon, almost bewildered by the possession of such a treasure. 'I may as well wait for some such occasion, and in the meantime can make any necessary advances to the abbess. Perhaps I may call on you again.'

The first day of the year 1795 had just dawned, and there was a thick and chilling fog. The abbess and her faithful servant felt this day more than usually depressed, for fifteen months had now elapsed since the 1500 francs had been received for the ruby, and there now remained provision only for a few days longer. 'I have got no answer from M. Simon,' said the abbess; and in giving utterance to her own thought, she was replying to what was at that moment passing through Margaret's mind. 'I fear he has not been able to get more for the ruby than he thinks fair interest for the money he advanced to me.'

'It is most likely,' said Margaret; and both relapsed into their former desponding silence.

'What a dreary New-Year's Day!' resumed Madame de Vatteville, in a melancholy tone.

'Oh, why can I not help you, dear mistress?' exclaimed Margaret, suddenly starting from her reverie. 'Cheerfully would I lay down my life for you!'

'And why can I not return in any way your devoted attachment, my poor Margaret?'

At this instant, two loud and hurried knocks at the door startled them both from their seats, and it was with a trembling hand Margaret opened it to admit the old porter, and a servant with a letter in his hand.

'Thank you, thank you, M. Thiebaut: this letter is for my mistress.' But the inquisitive old man either did not or would not understand Margaret's hint to him to retire, and Madame de Vatteville was obliged to tell him to leave the room.

'Not a penny to bless herself with, though she has come to a better apartment!' muttered he, enraged at the disappointment to his curiosity—'and yet as proud as an aristocrat!'

The abbess approached the casement, broke the seal with trembling hand, and read as follows:—

'I have at length been able to treat with a merchant for the article in question, and have, after much difficulty, obtained a sum of 25,000 francs—far beyond anything I could have hoped. But the sum is to be paid in instalments, at long intervals. It may therefore be more convenient for you, under your peculiar circumstances, to accept the offer I now make of a pension of 1500 francs, to revert after your decease to the servant whom you mentioned as so devotedly attached to you. If you are willing to accept this offer, the bearer will hand you the necessary documents, by which you are to make over to me all further claim upon the property placed in my hands; and on your affixing your signature, he will pay you the first year in advance.

    Simon.'

'What a worthy, excellent man!' joyfully exclaimed the abbess; for, in the noble integrity of her heart, she had no suspicion that he could take advantage of her circumstances.

However Simon settled the matter with his conscience, the abbess, trained in the school of adversity to be content with being preserved from absolute want, passed the remainder of her life quietly and happily with her good Margaret, both every day invoking blessings on the head of him whom they regarded as a generous benefactor. Madame de Vatteville lived to the age of one hundred, and her faithful Margaret survived only a few months the mistress to whom she had given such affecting proofs of attachment.

But Simon's detestable fraud proved of no use to him. After keeping his treasure for several years, he thought the Emperor's coronation presented a favourable opportunity for disposing of it. Unfortunately for him, his grasping avarice one morning suggested a thought which his ignorance prevented his rejecting: 'Since this ruby—old-fashioned and stained as it is—can be worth so much, what would be its value if freed from all defect, and in modern setting?' And he soon found a lapidary, who, for a sum of 3000 francs, modernised it, and effaced the spot, and with it the impress, the stamp of its antiquity—all that gave it value, beauty, worth! This wanting, no jeweller could recognise it: it was no longer worth a thousand crowns.

It was thus that the most splendid ruby in Europe lost its value and its fame; and its name is now only to be found in The Lapidaries' Guide, as that which had once been the most costly of gems. It seemed as if it could not survive the last of the illustrious house to which it owed its introduction into Europe, and its name.

HENRY TAYLOR

'There is delight in singing, though none hear
Beside the singer: and there is delight
In praising, though the praiser sit alone,
And see the praised far off him, far above.'

    —W.S. Landor.
It has been said, with more of truth than flattery, that literature of any kind which requires the reader himself to think, in order to enjoy, can never be popular. The writings of Mr Henry Taylor are to be classed in this category. The reader of his dramas must study in order to relish them; and their audience, therefore, must be of the fit, though few kind. Goethe somewhere remarks, that it is not what we take from a book so much as what we bring to it that actually profits us. But this is hard doctrine, caviare to the multitude. And so long as popular indolence and popular distaste for habits of reflection shall continue the order of the day, so long will it be difficult for writers of Mr Taylor's type to popularise their meditations; to see themselves quoted in every provincial newspaper and twelfth-rate magazine; to be gloriously pirated by eager hordes at Brussels and New York; or to create a furor in 'the Row' on the day of publication, and turn bibliopolic premises into 'overflowing houses.' The public asks for glaring effects, palpable hits, double-dyed colours, treble X inspirations, concentrated essence of sentiments, and emotions up to French-romance pitch. With such a public, what has our author in common? While they make literary demands after their own heart, and expect every candidate for their not evergreen laurels to conform to their rules, Mr Taylor calmly unfolds his theory, that it is from 'deep self-possession, an intense repose' that all genuine emanations of poetic genius proceed, and expresses his doubt whether any high endeavour of poetic art ever has been or ever will be promoted by the stimulation of popular applause.[2 - Notes from Life.] He denies that youth is the poet's prime. He contends that what constitutes a great poet is a rare and peculiar balance of all the faculties—the balance of reason with imagination, passion with self-possession, abundance with reserve, and inventive conception with executive ability. He insists that no man is worthy of the name of a poet who would not rather be read a hundred times by one reader than once by a hundred. He affirms that poetry, unless written simply to please and pamper, and not to elevate or instruct, will do little indeed towards procuring its writer a subsistence, and that it will probably not even yield him such a return as would suffice to support a labouring man for one month out of the twelve.[3 - Ibid.] Tenets like these are not for the million. The propounder they regard as talking at them, not to them. His principles and practice, his canons of taste, and his literary achievements, are far above out of their sight—his merit they are content to take on trust, by the hearing of the ear, a mystery of faith alone.

Perhaps men shrewder than good Sir Roger de Coverley might aver that much is to be said on both sides—that there may be something of fallacy on the part of poet as well as people in this controversy. It is possible to set the standard too high as well as too low—to plant it on an elevation so distant that its symbol can no longer be deciphered, as well as to fix it so low that its folds draggle in mire and dust. If genius systematically appeal only to the initiated few, it must learn to do without the homage of the outer multitude. For its slender income of fame, it has mainly itself to thank. These remarks apply with primary force to that class of contemporary poets who delight in the mystic and enigmatical, and whose ideas are so apt to vanish, like Homer's heroes, in a cloud—among whom Robert Browning and Philip J. Bailey are conspicuous names; and in a secondary degree to that other class, lucid indeed in thought, and classically definite in expression, but otherwise too scholastic and abstract for popular sympathies—among whom we may cite Walter Savage Landor and Henry Taylor. Coleridge[4 - Literary Remains.] tells us that, to enjoy poetry, we must combine a more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents contemplated by the poet, consequent on rare sensibility, with a more than ordinary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and imagination. This more than ordinary mental activity is especially demanded from the readers—say rather the students—of Philip van Artevelde and its kindred dramas. Those who are thus equipped will commonly be found to agree in admiring the writings of this author; among them he is unquestionably 'popular,' if it be any test of popularity to send forth a second edition three months after the first. Scholarship can appreciate, pure intellect can find nutriment in, his reflective and carefully-wrought pages. His heroes and heroines, cold and unimpassioned to the man of society, are classic and genial to the man of thought. A Quarterly Reviewer observes, that the blended dignity of thought, and a sedate moral habit, invests his poetry with a stateliness in which the drama is generally deficient, and makes his writings illustrate, in some degree, a new form of the art. In all that he writes he stands revealed the true English gentleman, 'that grand old name,' as Tennyson calls it,

Defamed by every charlatan,
And soiled with all ignoble use.'

Isaac Comnenus—in which a recent critic discovers much of that Byronian vein upon which Mr Taylor is severe in his own criticisms—being little remarkable in itself, as well as the least remarkable of his dramatic performances, need not detain us. The career of Philip van Artevelde belongs to an era when, as Sir James Stephen remarks, the whole of Europe, under the influence of some strange sympathy, was agitated by the simultaneous discontents of all her great civic populations—when the insurgent spirit, commencing in the Italian republics, had spread from the south to the north of the Alps, everywhere marking its advance by tumult, spoil, and bloodshed. 'Wat Tyler and his bands had menaced London; and the communes of Flanders, under the command of Philip van Artevelde, had broken out into open war with the counts, their seigneurs, and with their suzerain lord, the Duke of Burgundy. On the issue of that attempt the fate of the royal and baronial power seemed to hang in France, not less than in Flanders.'[5 - Lectures on the History of France.] The drama composed by Mr Taylor to represent the fortunes of the 'Chief Captain of the White Hoods and of Ghent,' consists of two plays and an interlude—The Lay of Elena—and being, as he says in his preface, equal in length to about six such plays as are adapted to the stage, was not, of course, intended to solicit the most sweet voices of pit and gallery, although it has since been subjected to that ordeal at the instance of Mr Macready. Historic truth is said to be preserved in it, as far as the material events are concerned—with the usual exception of such occasional dilatations and compressions of time as are required in dramatic composition. And notwithstanding the limited imagination and the too artificial passion which characterise it, Philip van Artevelde is in very many respects a noble work, as it certainly is its author's chef-d'oeuvre. It has been pronounced by no mean authority the superior of every dramatic composition of modern times, including the Sardanapalus of Lord Byron, the Remorse of Coleridge, and the Cenci of Shelley. The portraiture of Philip is one of those elaborate and highly-finished studies which repay as well as require minute investigation. He is at once profoundly meditative and surpassingly active. His energy of brain is only rivalled by his readiness of hand. In him the active mood and the passive—the practical and the ideal—the objective and the subjective—are not as parallel lines that never meet, but are sections of one line, describing the circle of his all-embracing mind. His youth has been, that of a dreamy recluse, the scorn of men of the world. 'Oh, fear him not, my lord,' says one of them to the Earl of Flanders:

—'His father's name
Is all that from his father[6 - Namely, Jacques van Artevelde, 'the noblest and the wisest man that ever ruled in Ghent,' and whom the factious citizens slew at his own door.] he derives.
He is a man of singular address
In catching river fish. His life hath been
Till now, more like a peasant's or a monk's,
Than like the issue of so great a man.'

Similarly the earl himself describes him as 'a man that as much knowledge has of war as I of brewing mead—a bookish nursling of the monks—a meacock.' But when the last scene of all has closed his strange eventful history, the testimony of a nobler, wiser foe,[7 - Duke of Burgundy, in the last scene of Part II.] ascribes to him great gifts of courage, discretion, wit, an equal temper, an ample soul, rock-bound and fortified against assaults of transitory passion, but founded on a surging subterranean fire that stirs him to lofty enterprise—a man prompt, capable, and calm, wanting nothing in soldiership except good-fortune. Ever tempted to reverie, he yet refuses, even for one little hour, to yield up the weal of Flanders to idle thought or vacant retrospect. Having once put his hand to the plough of action, with clear foresight, not blindfold bravery, his language is—'Though I indulge no more the dream of living, as I hoped I might have lived, a life of temperate and thoughtful joy, yet I repine not, and from this time forth will cast no look behind.' The first part of the drama leaves him an exultant victor, an honourable prosperous, and happy man. The second part—which alike in interest and treatment is very inferior to the first—finds him falling, and leaves him 'fallen, fallen, fallen, from his high estate.' His sun, no longer trailing clouds of glory, sets in a wintry and misty gloom. And yet in the act of dying he emits flashes of the ancient brightness, and we feel that so dies a hero. The other dramatis personæ pale their ineffectual fires before his central light.

After a silence of nearly ten years—characteristic of Mr Taylor's deliberative and disciplined mind—he produced (1842) Edwin the Fair, of whose story the little that was known, he observes, was romantic enough to have impressed itself on the popular memory—the tale of Edwy and Elgiva having been current in the nursery long before it came to be studied as a historical question. In illustrating this tale he borrows from the bordering reigns 'incidents which were characteristic of the times,' though some are of opinion, that his deviation from historical truth has rather impaired than aided the poetical effect of the drama. With artistic skill, and often with sustained energy, he develops the career of the 'All-Fair' prince, and his relation to the monkish struggle of the tenth century; the hostile intrigues and stormy violence of Dunstan; the loyal tenacity and Saxon frank-heartedness of Earl Leolf and his allies; the celebrated coronation-scene, and 'most admired disorder' of the banquet; the discovery and denunciation of Edwin's secret nuptials; his imprisonment in the Tower of London; the confusion and dispersion of his adherents; the ecclesiastical finesse and conjuror-tricks of Dunstan; the king's rescue and temporary success; the murder of Elgiva, and Edwin's own death in the essay to avenge her. It is around Dunstan, the representative of spiritual despotism, that the interest centres. The character of this 'Saint,' like that of Hildebrand and à Becket, has been made one of the problems of history. Mr Taylor's reading of the part is masterly, and we think correct. His Dunstan is not wholly sane; he believes himself inspired to read the alphabet of Heaven's stars, and to behold visions beyond the bounds of human foresight; one of the few to whom, 'and not in mercy, is it given to read the mixed celestial cypher: not in mercy, save as a penance merciful in issue.' His mischievous influence over the popular mind is sealed by the partial and latent degree of his insanity, for 'madness that doth least declare itself endangers most, and ever most infects the unsound many.' His great natural powers are tainted by the one black spot; his youth has been devoted to books, to the study of chemistry and mechanics; his manhood to observing 'the ways of men and policies of state' in the court of Edred; 'and were he not pushed sometimes past the confines of his reason, he would o'ertop the world.' Next to him in interest comes Earl Leolf, from whose lips proceed some of the finest poetry in the play, especially that exquisite soliloquy[8 - Beginning:—'Rocks that beheld my boyhood! Perilous shelfThat nursed my infant courage! Once againI, stand before you—not as in other daysIn your gray faces smiling; but like youThe worse for weather.'…How sweet the lines:—The sun shall soonDip westerly; but oh! how little likeAre life's two twilights! Would the last were first,And the first last! that so we might he soothedUpon the thoroughfares of busy lifeBeneath the noon-day sun, with hope of joyFresh as the morn,' &c.—Act II. scene ii.] on the sea-shore at Hastings. Athulf, the brother of Elgiva, is another happy portrait—a man bright and jocund as the morn, who can and will detect the springs of fruitfulness and joy in earth's waste places, and whose bluff dislike of Dunstan is aptly illustrated in the scene where he brings the king's commands, and is kept waiting by the monks during Dunstan's matutinal flagellation:—